Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Snowdown week, I guess I's appropriate to have it snowing at least a little out, though it's mostly amounting to wet and gray rather than prettily snowy. And with a birthday coming up, I feel like I should find something special to do (that's usually my recommendation to others), but I've got nothin'. Not even a movie in theaters I want to go see. Mind you, I've already received more gifts than I would have asked for, which is nice, but still I find myself mostly wanting to just rest and relax at home - which isn't particularly unusual. And work has been a subtle drag lately. It's not that anything truly bad or stressful is going on, but... my boss/co-tech's procrastination is wearing on me. I try to be understanding, but I think it's been three days in the last week that he's taken off with only last minute notification and even when he hasn't, it has felt like he went home right after I did, with nothing being accomplished. That print

The team behind Guild Wars 2 hasn't been idle, with the Living Story releases and other patch changes, but almost two and a half years later, we get an announcement of the games first "real expansion." No release date yet, so it's early - my guess is we'll see it toward the end of the year. And while I'll probably pick it up, nothing I've heard really excites me. So yeah, I'm still a jaded gamer. ;) A new WVW map doesn't really mean anything to me, and doesn't immediately overshadow the one they've already added. The addition of guild halls is probably good (considering this is supposed to be a Guild Wars game), but I don't see much effect on play. New maps and content expanding into the jungle region won't hurt, though it remains to be seen how much there is. I expect a lot from an "expansion" given we've had zone maps added before in regular patches. New ways to get precursors? That's probably one thing I m

I find some measure of familiarity and truth in this comic . It's nice to see the familiar faces of the guild in WoW, and it's nice to do things with them or even just "talk shop" on-channel. Even within the relatively small guild, people are moving at different paces. I don't really see signs of a raiding group anytime soon. And generally, I'm fine with that. The "endgame" feels strange to me compared to previous expansions. Oh, there's still "do X to get gear good enough to do Y." But... some things that mattered don't anymore. I think I ran a single normal-mode dungeon, and was geared for heroics pretty quickly. I've run a few heroics (primarily those required by the legendary ring quest), but there's no mechanical incentive to do them again. It used to be a way to earn currency for gear, but now even randoming just gives bonus gold, and I've already outgrown all but a couple possible drops. There's one recurr

GW2's Living Story continues, and makes me consider the philosophy behind it. But I'll circle around to the technical aspects in a bit. The story progresses okay in general. I was under the impression that this latest episode was the season finale, though it doesn't really feel like it to me. There's no real conclusion. If anything, it seems to be tossing fuel on the fire for upcoming developments. With an announcement due on the 24th that's widely believed to be a game expansion, I'm not surprised, but I can't say I'm exactly satisfied either. Caithe continues to be frustratingly plot tool-ish. "We're on the same side," she insists moments after agreeing that sylvari are all creations of Mordremoth. She offers nothing that would be remotely reassuring and vanishes conveniently before you can press her for any answers. I still feel as though she is, in fact, a good guy, but the only way the writers have come up with to create doubt is

I really need to stop interpretting tashiro 's comments of "have you watched X" as meaning he's watched more than a single episode himself or is strongly recommending it. I decided to give the anime series Bakemonogatari an episode to see what I thought. When the first little story continued into the second episode, I watched that too, and apparently that's more than he saw. Heh. The concept has some reasonable potential - modern world with lots of supernatural stuff in the shadows, including a main character who has recovered from being a vampire. That's... really about all I can give it, though. Nothing really drew me in. Now, I'm not above appreciating sexiness in entertainment, but opening episode one with a panty shot that had nothing to do with anything and the second episode with a shower scene just felt gratuitous and pointless. The visual style (or perhaps "direction") bugs me almost to the point of headaches, frequently flitting

I'd read mention of the series before. Mech pilot of advanced society is stranded on an ocean world, and some dealing with the implications of his craft being a super weapon. It didn't quite catch my eye back then, but looking through possible series to watch, it came up again. I'm actually rather surprised and impressed. From the first episode, I was stricken with some similarities to the Gossamer and Shadows character I created. Sure, "mech pilot from space-faring society raised in a time of ongoing war" isn't all that unique in itself. But where I gave her a navigational/support AI that she had refined as part of her techy suit able to project holographic displays and converse, Ledo in Gargantia has a support AI in his mech, Chamber, which has an interface unit that can be removed and connects to his suit. Chamber does translating for Ledo for a while, showing text in an image before him. Also the way Ledo's society has raised him is more extreme, but

Four day weekends are all kind of awesome if you don't let yourself get completely bored. Facing a full five-day work week is a little daunting, even. Hitting a three-day con so soon after the holiday weekends would be nice, but it's a little much, I'm afraid. Especially with a vacation already planned in February. I caught the tail end of The Man with the Iron Fists on TV and found myself wondering how, exactly, over-the-top wuxai action could be made to look so uninteresting. I'm not sure what it was exactly about it, but the fight scenes actually struck me as boring. Leveling through Pandaria is not quite as bad as I expected, taking the majority of two zones, but I'd still skip it if I could with alts (if it didn't cost a notable amount of money to do so). I'm arguably more interested in leveling and gearing garrison followers in WoD than I am my main character. That said, having them bring back an epic chest upgrade was pretty sweet, too. I&#